Technology Lab —

Does Windows 8 succeed as a true tablet operating system?

When it's good, it's very, very good. When it's bad...

Among desktop users, Windows 8's user interface has been met with a lukewarm reception, inspiring a recurring refrain: "Why have they put a tablet interface on my desktop system?" That Windows 8 is actually suitable for and effective on touch-driven tablets has been almost taken for granted.

A successful entry into the tablet market demands a strong touch interface. The competition from the iPad is stiff, and the iPad's iOS has five years of user interface refinement under its belt. Has Microsoft really gotten it right with Windows 8 and touch?

Kinda.

Touch is baked into the basic Windows 8 interface, and it shows up in the core, universal interactions that bring up the operating system's user interface: swipes from the right screen edge bring up the charms bar, those from the left edge switch apps or bring up the task switcher, and swipes from top or bottom bring up each application's toolbar-style app bar.

As concerned as I am about the comparable mechanisms for mouse and keyboard users, these touch gestures work really well. Task switching in particular is great; flicking back and forth between apps is effortless. It makes the original iPad, where you either had to bounce between apps via the home screen, or double tap the home button to select from a "taskbar," look like something from a bygone era. (Though as of iOS 5, Apple added some four and five finger gestures to allow navigation without the button.)

Windows 8 at its heart is a solid, well designed, touch-friendly operating system. Microsoft has shown that once it sets out to produce a touch-friendly operating system, it can do so well, which makes you wonder why it took the company so long.

While Microsoft has been trying to crack the tablet market for almost twenty years now, Windows 8 is in some ways a version 1 product. It's the first time Microsoft has actually built a tablet operating system with a genuine attempt at a touch interface (compared to previous efforts that attempted to make tablet users wrestle with the traditional desktop interface), and only the second time that Microsoft has built a genuine touch interface at all (the first being Windows Phone).

Unfortunately, all of this excellent touch work hasn't gone quite far enough—even tablet users who want to live their lives wholly in Metro are in for some pain.

Touch-first design

The overall experience of using Metro on a touch machine is a pleasing one. The bold design aesthetic forms a natural home for controls that are comfortably finger-sized, and though the apps we have available at the moment are all quite limited in their capabilities, Windows 8 nails the basic touch interactions. And the way the operating system uses touch gets more interesting when you look at the details.

The touch parts of Windows 8 feel touch native in a way that I don't think anything else quite manages. I don't mean any disservice to Apple's engineers; Apple has plainly done more than anyone else to make touch devices mainstream, and Apple's vocabulary of swiping, panning, and two finger zooming has become the industry standard. But iOS has some bits and pieces, like that hardware home button, that aren't touch-based or aren't quite comfortable on touch systems. I don't get the same feeling on Windows 8.

For example, consider the "long press" gesture. "Long press" (where instead of tapping on something you press it for a second or two) is a long-standing feature of touch interfaces. Microsoft's many attempts at a stylus-driven touch interface used it to emulate right click. iOS, Android, and Windows Phone all use it.

But "long press" is annoying to use. There's no fluidity to it. You just have to stop what you're doing and wait—one second, two seconds—for the thing to register. It doesn't matter how swift and fluent you are with the rest of the gestures, everything's on hold while you long press. It's a hangover from the early touch interfaces where the designers were trying to mimic the mouse; since the mouse has two buttons, they needed to distinguish between "left click" and "right click" in tap contexts.

Staying fluid

Windows 8 supports long press in various places, but Microsoft has made a deliberate effort not to need it: regular, everyday tasks should all be possible without long pressing. iOS, for example, uses long press to switch its home screen user interface, Springboard, from its normal app launcher mode into "icons jiggling around" mode, where you can drag the icons around, move them into folders, and switch them between screens.

The Start screen in Windows 8 supports essentially the same operations—you can move the live tiles between groups, get rid of them entirely, or otherwise organize them as you see fit. But instead of using clumsy long presses to allow this organization, Windows 8 uses nudges and drags. Flick a live tile up or down, and it will gain a selection box, providing the ability to remove it or change its behavior in some way. (For example, you can turn off its live updates, or switch between single and double-width tiles.) Want to pick up a tile to move around? Just drag it up (or down) and it comes loose.

We see a similar attitude toward the often awkward task of selecting text to copy or paste it. This is an area where long presses are typical, along with other mechanisms such as magnifying glasses to make fine manipulations easier. Windows 8 does away with the long press in favor of something that should feel a bit more direct: you just tap.

The system is a minor evolution of the mechanism used in Windows Phone. Tap in a piece of selectable text and a kind of inverted lollipop appears. Drag the lollipop left or right and it grows to produce another lollipop, with the text between the two lollies being selected. Tap the blob on the end of the stick and cut and paste options appear. If you have something on the clipboard already, tapping the blob also gives you a paste option.

Copy and paste with touch.

(Where tapping already has a meaning, such as visiting links in webpages, Windows 8 still supports long pressing to enable highlighting and copying text.)

None of this is revolutionary. The text selection system in Android is very similar, but it's initiated with a long press (some of the time, at least; editable text fields don't need the long press).

On their own, these are all small details, but together they mean that the Windows 8 touch interface goes as fast as I can control it, without the speed bumps other platforms have.

315 Reader Comments

The key feature for Windows' handwriting recognition is a feature that either you didn't mention or aren't aware of. It honestly isn't important that it can directly convert your handwriting to text. Yes, that works excellent, but generally the touch keyboard is faster, as you noted in this article. However, the killer feature is when you're in OneNote, you can hand-write all your notes and leave them in your own handwriting. In the background, those notes are converted to text, which makes all of your handwritten notes fully searchable. Since I started using OneNote on a tablet with this key feature, I can't remember the last time I've used a paper notebook.

The key feature for Windows' handwriting recognition is a feature that either you didn't mention or aren't aware of. It honestly isn't important that it can directly convert your handwriting to text. Yes, that works excellent, but generally the touch keyboard is faster, as you noted in this article. However, the killer feature is when you're in OneNote, you can hand-write all your notes and leave them in your own handwriting. In the background, those notes are converted to text, which makes all of your handwritten notes fully searchable. Since I started using OneNote on a tablet with this key feature, I can't remember the last time I've used a paper notebook.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

As for all the people complaining about metro.... I don't get the hate. It took me about 2 hours to get used to it and ultimately I'm as advanced a user as can be in Windows and I haven't had to change my workflows on the desktop even slightly. Otherwise there is simply no reason not to upgrade.

Wow what a selling point, you got used to it.

Here is why I am not going to upgrade: Metro is worse than the start menu at organizing programs.

I shouldn't have to explain why but dumping dozens of my start menu folder items onto a flat screen with a bunch of animated ads is not a gain in productivity. It takes longer to find something and "just typing" isn't an answer when I have items that I rarely use.

Then there is the fun of having that damn metro screen pop up when in Windows 7 I can launch control panel items without a jarring full screen animation.

As for metro "apps" they will fail the hardest with that forced full screen crap and the fonts suck as well.

Windows 8 is a just a pile of fail and if you can't see that then please don't ever run a business.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

but with multitouch gestures that have been available since the introduction of iOS5, you can do a 5-finger swipe left and right to switch between running apps. Not so bygone now eh?

Oh, that's a real zinger there... You really showed the author in that one. So basically you're saying palming the entire screen to move to a recently used app is a step in the right direction? Seems kinda clumsy to me. What about a foot swipe?

Seems? If you haven't used it why bother chiming in about foot swipes (arse swipe?). It works just fine and is a four finger swipe not five. Four fingers up gives you the running apps if you want to switch that way. No need to press the home button.

Relying on multifinger gestures as critical navigation components also reduces acessibility by a lot.

Neither of those gestures are relied upon, they're entirely optional, with several other ways of accomplishing the same task.

That should be pretty obvious, given that apparently most people don't know about them.

I was talking about this:

Schpyder wrote:

Interestingly, these operations obviate the need for the home button, although having a couple hardware buttons if for no other reason than being able to force diagnostics or reboot if the tablet is locked up is almost certainly a good idea.

I know you do say that hardware buttons are a good idea. But, it's important to dispel some of the rumours that Apple was going to do away with the home button and just rely on gestures.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

They also removed gadgets because it was a joke for Sinofsky to be trying to sell us "live information" when we already had that with 7.

Good point. They just slapped lipstick on the pig and called it a day, and slowly cleaned up the internal bloat.

Despite the hate, Vista SP1 was a solid OS, but the hate was never going to go away.

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I can install and completely reconfigure X/K/L/Ubuntu as a touch interface GUI faster (25 min. install + add'l 20 min.) than I could get any WinOS installed (minimum 2.75 hrs. just to install, with service packs, etc., let alone make useable)....

Win 7 was released 3 years ago, your "Linux" distro was probably released today, or yesterday, so it's always a up-to-date OS and requires no patches. Try downloading and installing a 3-year old Linux distro and then we will see how well it runs on today's hardware, if at all.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

They also removed gadgets because it was a joke for Sinofsky to be trying to sell us "live information" when we already had that with 7.

All 8 of those were so amazing I don't know what I'm going to do without that huge selection.

There is another problem with the keyboard that PeterB didn't (and probably couldn't) mention: when using a non-US keyboard, MS mixed the local letters with the regular keys in the "simplified" keyboard, making it extremely hard to use. See the Swiss-French layout here:

The letters in the red zone are used for less that 5% of the typed characters but take more than 10% of the screen real estate. Sure, it's a duplicate of a physical keyboard but that's not what is expected from a simplified layout. Here, they just create a large "no hit" zone right where things are the easiest to reach with your thumb.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

Pity ... I mean, it was hopelessly outdated (unchanged since Win95), and well-buried even in 7 (Control Panel > Personalization > Color > Advanced Appearance Settings), but it would have been useful to make Windows a bit more touch-friendly (I don't suppose you can change the screen resolution for the desktop independently of Metro?)

Why on earth are Linux users showing up to complain about an OS they hate and will never use regardless of what Microsoft does?

It looks like most things are pretty good, and Windows 8.1 should be able to fix the rest. These idiotic expectations that a change this big is going to work perfectly on first implementation are just haters that gotta hate.

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit, I've got decent video drives (wave at JasePow), and I have thousands of times the applications available to Linux (and of course hundreds of times the apps available to Mac).

Played a good game of solitaire lately JasePow? Or maybe Doom for Linux? Did it crash half-way through, and wait while you had to try and track down a sound driver that'd work?

Sorry, but Linux just isn't comparable to, and isn't, a mainstream operating system, regardless of the efforts that have been put in by dozens of companies. It has its uses, but Windows will be staying my main OS and Windows 8 looks to have a lot of promise for a first draft of a BIG change.

Hmmm, maybe because MS will stop at nothing to kill off open source?!?! UEFI secure boot?!?! A solution looking for a problem, that one?!?! Or, maybe the real problem was lack of vendor lock-in...

Oh,... and on the hardware front,... 1997 is calling and they want their FUD back... Linux supports way more hardware out-of-the-box than any version of Windows. That's a fact. To test it,... buy a bare-bones machine (or wipe the hard drive on an old one) and install any modern version of Linux distros and then ... any of MS's latest offerings. For eye candy, I'd recommend Kubuntu with Medibuntu repositories added (just follow the step-by-step on the website) or (believe it or not), the Commodore Vision OS (another Mint re-spin). See which one gets you a fully functional system up first,... Linux or MS...

Oh,... And the only thing that's crashed on one of my machines in the last few years is a copy of WinXP,... running inside VirtualBox on a Kubuntu 11.10 powered laptop,... & there was nothing wrong with the virtual machine...

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

They also removed gadgets because it was a joke for Sinofsky to be trying to sell us "live information" when we already had that with 7.

All 8 of those were so amazing I don't know what I'm going to do without that huge selection.

There were thousands and I found a lot of them useful.

But keeping defending MS/Sinofsky and this plan to needlessly take away what we already have. You will just look like another idiot who was defending Windows 8 come October.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

They also removed gadgets because it was a joke for Sinofsky to be trying to sell us "live information" when we already had that with 7.

All 8 of those were so amazing I don't know what I'm going to do without that huge selection.

There were thousands and I found a lot of them useful.

But keeping defending MS/Sinofsky and this plan to needlessly take away what we already have. You will just look like another idiot who was defending Windows 8 come October.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but after some point (SP1?), I could've sworn there was no more ability to use third-party gadgets in Windows 7.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. I'm not defending Microsoft, I'm saying that I am using Windows 8, and it works great for me. If it doesn't work for you, stick to Windows 7. I'm pretty sure Sinofsky won't care.

Oh,... and on the hardware front,... 1997 is calling and they want their FUD back...

1997 also called, they want their jokes back.

Quote:

Linux supports way more hardware out-of-the-box than any version of Windows. That's a fact.

Does not install on my new Asus Z77 board, I5 2500k, Nvidia 560ti, Asus Xonar D2x Soundcard. Yet my 3-year old Win7 OS will install to a perfectly working, 1080p desktop. True I then have to install some drivers from a couple of DVDs, but that is hardly a labour-intensive operation. Funny thing is those DVDs do not contain ANY Linux drivers, so I would be completely up shit creek without a paddle if I chose to install Linux. No Live! CDs work either, on on NONE of my Z77 PCs I have built for various people/friends. Although, pre-configured Linux distros work ok, such as recovery distros, and the excellent Parted Magic.

As for all the people complaining about metro.... I don't get the hate. It took me about 2 hours to get used to it and ultimately I'm as advanced a user as can be in Windows and I haven't had to change my workflows on the desktop even slightly. Otherwise there is simply no reason not to upgrade.

Wow what a selling point, you got used to it.

Here is why I am not going to upgrade: Metro is worse than the start menu at organizing programs.

I shouldn't have to explain why but dumping dozens of my start menu folder items onto a flat screen with a bunch of animated ads is not a gain in productivity. It takes longer to find something and "just typing" isn't an answer when I have items that I rarely use.

Then there is the fun of having that damn metro screen pop up when in Windows 7 I can launch control panel items without a jarring full screen animation.

As for metro "apps" they will fail the hardest with that forced full screen crap and the fonts suck as well.

Windows 8 is a just a pile of fail and if you can't see that then please don't ever run a business.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but after some point (SP1?), I could've sworn there was no more ability to use third-party gadgets in Windows 7.

Regardless, it doesn't matter. I'm not defending Microsoft, I'm saying that I am using Windows 8, and it works great for me. If it doesn't work for you, stick to Windows 7. I'm pretty sure Sinofsky won't care.

Yes you are wrong about gadgets.

But you are right about Sinofsky not caring. He doesn't care that the response to Windows 8 has been largely negative. He will care however when this thing fails and he is remembered at the wannabe-Steve jobs who cost MIcrosoft billions

No really, please do. Otherwise you sound like a fanboi who nitpicks the first thing he finds slightly offensive to the Apple crowd.

<quote>Task switching in particular is great; flicking back and forth between apps is effortless. It makes the iPad, where you either have to bounce between apps via the home screen, or double tap the home button to select from a "taskbar," look like something from a bygone era.</quote>

GordonBX wrote:

but with multitouch gestures that have been available since the introduction of iOS5, you can do a 5-finger swipe left and right to switch between running apps. Not so bygone now eh?

Oh, that's a real zinger there... You really showed the author in that one. So basically you're saying palming the entire screen to move to a recently used app is a step in the right direction? Seems kinda clumsy to me. What about a foot swipe?

And this is why Apple fanboys and macmacs are no longer the most annoying idiots on the internet. Hateful uneducated winboys and droidheads are now the most obnoxious people around.

Have you tried blowing the user interface elements (icons, text, etc.) on the desktop way up? I don't have a Win8 system to check this on, but I suspect there's still a desktop-only setting for it buried in the old display control panel, and it might make it more touch friendly.

Unfortunately Microsoft has removed the "advanced appearance settings" control panel from Windows 7 to Windows 8.

They also removed gadgets because it was a joke for Sinofsky to be trying to sell us "live information" when we already had that with 7.

All 8 of those were so amazing I don't know what I'm going to do without that huge selection.

There were thousands and I found a lot of them useful.

But keeping defending MS/Sinofsky and this plan to needlessly take away what we already have. You will just look like another idiot who was defending Windows 8 come October.

Windows 8: Not even worth pirating.

And if it turns out to be a success and sells well will you admit you're looking like an idiot now? Don't turn it around and say it won't. You simply have absolutely no quantitative way of knowing outside of your opinions. Maybe you should shut your mouth, let the big boys who know what they're talking about do the talking and leave your annoyed fanboi rants to your blog.

Until the product is shipped and on store shelves no one knows how well it will sell. Not fanbois on any side. Not Steve Ballmer. Not Gabe Newall. Not Tim Cook. No one. You can't predict the future. If you can predict the future you should have told people in Aurora, Colo. that shooter was coming instead of ranting about something no one will care about in a decade.

Why is there so much white space -- I mean black space? -- around the keyboard? Seems like it is designed to obstruct as much of the screen as possible. Especially in desktop mode -- where you really need to see the whole screen because the apps are not designed to have a giant keyboard in front of them -- and that's where it is the most egregious.

There should be a 4-row keyboard with the basic layout plus a number row. We are pushed to include numbers and symbols in passwords, but the keyboard for entering passwords is letters only? That would also give room for up/down and perhaps Tab (since Windows makes it important for navigation).

The split keyboard should be transparent in the middle. There is no excuse for covering that section up. Especially in desktop mode.

Not sure if it's possible, but can you use the English layout with the Swiss dictionary? I'd think the gestures for accent keys would be good enough that way.

Yes, you can do that. It's still a rather major failure of the keyboard interface, if you ask me. Also, I frequently have to switch between French and English languages and it will make 4 different profiles (2 keyboards for each of the 2 languages).

TBH, the whole "localization" thing is buggy and crappy on Windows 8 as it's been crappy in previous versions. The thing is inconsistent and behaves completely irrationally in several aspects (for instance, the language used to display the UI in your programs (including Metro) is not the language you selected for your OS UI but whatever you picked as "Formats" (i.e. dates, numbers format).

Oh,... and on the hardware front,... 1997 is calling and they want their FUD back...

1997 also called, they want their jokes back.

Quote:

Linux supports way more hardware out-of-the-box than any version of Windows. That's a fact.

Does not install on my new Asus Z77 board, I5 2500k, Nvidia 560ti, Asus Xonar D2x Soundcard. Yet my 3-year old Win7 OS will install to a perfectly working, 1080p desktop. True I then have to install some drivers from a couple of DVDs, but that is hardly a labour-intensive operation. Funny thing is those DVDs do not contain ANY Linux drivers, so I would be completely up shit creek without a paddle if I chose to install Linux. No Live! CDs work either, on on NONE of my Z77 PCs I have built for various people/friends. Although, pre-configured Linux distros work ok, such as recovery distros, and the excellent Parted Magic.

You can't get "Linux" to install on that machine? Did you try ALL OF THE LINUX? /sheesh

Win 7 was released 3 years ago, your "Linux" distro was probably released today, or yesterday, so it's always a up-to-date OS and requires no patches. Try downloading and installing a 3-year old Linux distro and then we will see how well it runs on today's hardware, if at all.

Two things,... First off,... what kinda argument is that?!?! MS doesn't update their stuff?!?! I would hope they do (pretty sure they do, actually),... Or, are you comparing release cycles??? If so then, why can't they get stuff out the door???,... Unless it's because they want to charge you again for something that's 90% the same under the hood, but with a face-lift?!?! In the open source world we call that switching Desktop Environments (can usually be done with a mouse click and download or two).

Second,... I use mostly Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, which is roughly 2.5 years old,... about the same as Win7 with one of its release packs... No problems... Hardware really doesn't change that much,... except to get faster/cheaper. Linux tends to make excellent use of the extra horsepower of modern machines. And most distros release regular updates,... and there's always back-ports of newer stuff (only a mouse click away). The only problems installing Linux stem from OEM locked down hardware or exotic hardware setups. Those are just as troublesome with MS software.

And if it turns out to be a success and sells well will you admit you're looking like an idiot now? Don't turn it around and say it won't. You simply have absolutely no quantitative way of knowing outside of your opinions. Maybe you should shut your mouth, let the big boys who know what they're talking about do the talking and leave your annoyed fanboi rants to your blog.

Until the product is shipped and on store shelves no one knows how well it will sell. Not fanbois on any side. Not Steve Ballmer. Not Gabe Newall. Not Tim Cook. No one. You can't predict the future. If you can predict the future you should have told people in Aurora, Colo. that shooter was coming instead of ranting about something no one will care about in a decade.

No really, please do. Otherwise you sound like a fanboi who nitpicks the first thing he finds slightly offensive to the Apple crowd.

<quote>Task switching in particular is great; flicking back and forth between apps is effortless. It makes the iPad, where you either have to bounce between apps via the home screen, or double tap the home button to select from a "taskbar," look like something from a bygone era.</quote>

GordonBX wrote:

but with multitouch gestures that have been available since the introduction of iOS5, you can do a 5-finger swipe left and right to switch between running apps. Not so bygone now eh?

Oh, that's a real zinger there... You really showed the author in that one. So basically you're saying palming the entire screen to move to a recently used app is a step in the right direction? Seems kinda clumsy to me. What about a foot swipe?

He was not trying for a zinger. It also wasn't a nitpick. The author clearly did not know the same feature exists in iOS. It is not palming the whole screen, it is five fingers. What seems clear is that you did not read the article and just jumped to the comments to start attacking people.

Maybe if you read the article you will understand what is happening in the comments better.

Imagine that you want to add a language or keyboard layout. Same thing happens; the touch settings app has a link, and tapping that link unceremoniously dumps you in the desktop Language Control Panel.

This is why people get pissed off with Microsoft, they never learn - they do lots of great stuff and ruin it with the finer details. I see certain parts of Metro that are genuinely innovative and make iOS look dated, but Apple would never release an OS with a touch interface that dumps you out to the desktop, even if you're on a tablet device.

To be fair, they haven't released this version yet either. It's quite possible that these will be fixed by RTM. Just looking at the Developer Preview to the Release Preview, they have already fixed a lot of these little times where you get dumped to the desktop.

And if it turns out to be a success and sells well will you admit you're looking like an idiot now? Don't turn it around and say it won't. You simply have absolutely no quantitative way of knowing outside of your opinions. Maybe you should shut your mouth, let the big boys who know what they're talking about do the talking and leave your annoyed fanboi rants to your blog.

Until the product is shipped and on store shelves no one knows how well it will sell. Not fanbois on any side. Not Steve Ballmer. Not Gabe Newall. Not Tim Cook. No one. You can't predict the future. If you can predict the future you should have told people in Aurora, Colo. that shooter was coming instead of ranting about something no one will care about in a decade.

HAHA oh really? So if Burger King announced that they were going to sell cold lutefisk sandwiches no one would be able to predict how they would sell? How far would you take this silly argument? What if they tried selling cold lutefisk and early polls showed that most people didn't like it? Still couldn't make any predictions?

People with common sense know that Windows 8 is going to fail. Gabe Newell has common sense, you don't and you're an idiot if you think any of this needs "quantitative" evidence.

You can't get "Linux" to install on that machine? Did you try ALL OF THE LINUX? /sheesh

Yep, and why would I bother with the hundreds of other distros out there ? Why ? Do you expect me to keep trying them all until one "works" ? Win7 works perfectly fine, so why waste my time with a piss-poor alternative.

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Two things,... First off,... what kinda argument is that?!?!

The same piss-poor arguments you have been trolling with ?

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If so then, why can't they get stuff out the door???,...

I guess Windows Update is too much for you, then ?

Quote:

Second,... I use mostly Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, which is roughly 2.5 years old,... about the same as Win7 with one of its release packs... No problems... Hardware really doesn't change that much,... except to get faster/cheaper. Linux tends to make excellent use of the extra horsepower of modern machines. And most distros release regular updates,... and there's always back-ports of newer stuff (only a mouse click away). The only problems installing Linux stem from OEM locked down hardware or exotic hardware setups. Those are just as troublesome with MS software.

It's a shame about the keyboard layout. That's a good 10-15% which is basically pointless. Also, what's with all the FUD around Vista? I'd be willing to wager that all the crap that's been thrown Vista's way was less to do with Vista and more to do with people getting all butthurt over the fact that MS dared asked people to move beyond good ol'grandpa XP. That and 3rd party drivers.

Yes - there are multiple implementations, but the easiest is probably http://sourceforge.net/projects/lxbdplayer/. Or you can roll your own with MakeMKV and VLC. Or there are other more complex set ups. Of course, this also means you can back up your legally purchased Blu ray disks onto your media player and have your own HD video on demand system, which is nice for those of us who like flexibility.

Postulator wrote:

Or a DVD movie, for that matter? Oops, didn't pay the licence fee.

Funny - these DVDs in front of me don't seem to have a license agreement on them about playback. Most of us (including Windows users) would use VLC but if you feel the need to buy something, you can get a set of licensed codecs from Fluendo.

Postulator wrote:

Of course, you can always steal your content and claim you're doing it to screw big business, but excusing it doesn't make it right. You just don't seem to understand the difference between a consumer OS and a nerd OS.

I've read through a fair number of your inaccurate and inflamatory posts on Linux, so I know you know little about the platform, the technology or the complexities of licensing. Given than about half the smart phone market is now running Linux and that Ubuntu is expected to be pre-installed on 20 million PCs next year, I'd say Linux has left the nerd OS era a long time ago.

You'd have thought the new Office version would be a huge priority for Windows 8 compatibility, but the whole thing sounds like it's going to be a disaster. Microsoft is going to end up having to rely on third parties to make good Metro office apps, while the ARM surface users are just plain stuffed?

I suppose Microsoft might have an Office update ready to address this, and the rudimentary touch support we see now is actually just for users that have switched into desktop mode, for example if the Metro version lacks some features?

I dunno, I've really tried to use Windows 8 but while I like Metro in theory, in practise I've found nothing to like about it for both touch and desktop use.

The Office team's been crapping on Windows tablet dreams for over a decade (eg there were some trivial changes they could've done to make entering text into an Excel cell via a stylus much easier); Office 2013 looks like more of the same.

I just don't think touch office is really possible. Office is defined by its _fullness_, i.e. it's many, many legacy features for printing, etc. To make a usable touch interface, you'd have to hack those features off until it was just QuickOffice, and then you've lost the appeal. Look at their web office, look at how they treated WinCE when they once upon a time had ce laptops with usable battery life. Can you even make MS Office within Metro guidelines? How many large round buttons would it take? Just for Word?

In a way, it's not just their business at siege but their whole mindset. Previously, large monolithic software ruled and you could always just add a feature to combat competitors. Slow hdds and large screens with precise tiny pointers made that approach work, it was quicker to look for a button than start a new app. It was horizontal integration, one app with the functionality of many. With the dollar app mindset on tiny screens, we're moving to many limited use apps. Note apps, text apps, email apps, messaging apps, twitter, facebook, etc. Things are tied vertically not horizontally, i.e. notes and tables and email and printing aren't part of my document editor, my doc editor is tied to a vertical cloud and if I want to move content I have to explicitly move it to a spreadsheet or email or printer. Private updates for Facebook, public for twitter, with the option to move them horizontally. Everything is moving to cloud siloes with limited sharing. And Metro is designed for this as much as anything. And Office probably has no place in Metro.

I've read through a fair number of your inaccurate and inflamatory posts on Linux, so I know you know little about the platform, the technology or the complexities of licensing. Given than about half the smart phone market is now running Linux and that Ubuntu is expected to be pre-installed on 20 million PCs next year, I'd say Linux has left the nerd OS era a long time ago.

Oh come on, we all know he is talking about the desktop and not Android and those pre-installs won't hide the problems.

The Linux desktop ain't ready yet and won't be until 2030. As much as Windows 8 sucks I'd still rather use it than deal with Linux driver issues.

People with common sense know that Windows 8 is going to fail. Gabe Newell has common sense, you don't and you're an idiot if you think any of this needs "quantitative" evidence.

That doesn't mean it's going to fail. It will fail as a standalone purchase, but it will still be bundled with laptops. Most people wont be bothered to change it if it works well enough for them. A majority probably wont even realise that they have an option to use something else.

I know people using vista, they cant be bothered to upgrade or downgrade it. The same will happen with Windows 8